


trust kravitz, love kravitz

by pierianabeyance



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Tazswap, Tres Horny Girls AU, all of the ipre is Swapped, and also sloane and hurley's roles r swapped because i just liked that idea lmao, i mean like...Kind Of taako, like he's mentioned but he's not Here, proofreading? idk her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 20:09:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pierianabeyance/pseuds/pierianabeyance
Summary: This does not change: four adventurers accompany Gundren Rockseeker on a quest. Three make up a trio of hardly more than strangers, seemingly roped together by coincidence and sticking with each other for the payment promised at the end. The fourth is hired as a guard and happens to be a lich, but nobody knows that second part now.This, however, does: It's not Barry Bluejeans who rises from the ashes of Phandalin, and it's not Tres Horny Boys who watched it burn.Instead, things are a little bit different.





	trust kravitz, love kravitz

**Author's Note:**

> UUHHhh "hey sophia did you write this fic instead of studying for that apush exam you have in 2 days" yeah Fuck off alright  
> look i fuckin love tres horny girls and i love [this](http://trainwreckgenerator.tumblr.com/tagged/tazswap) tazswap au by Tumblr User trainwreckgenerator because roleswaps r my favorite thing in the world and like?? kravitz as a lich/red robe um.....sign me Up  
> no proofreading we die like men, no double checking exactly how things happen in canon we forget like men and then feel like Fools for not remembering when someone else points stuff out  
> also i dont...think hurley and sloane are swapped in trainwreckgenerator's au but u know what. they are here. because this is how i spent my afternoon.

Kravitz is dead before he hits the ground.

And this...well, this isn’t great. Necessary, for sure, but not great, definitely not the kind of position he particularly wanted to wind up in. But Davenport ( _ damn him _ , and not for the first time) didn’t leave him with much of a choice in the matter. So, he’s a lich now - happens to the best of ‘em, right? There will be time to worry about the repercussions of that another time, because right now there are other things to concern himself with.  _ Seven _ other things, as a matter of fact. 

Well, eight.

(Taako is, as he so often enjoys being, priority number one.)

There really isn’t much time to waste, then.

Kravitz has a plan and he knows what to do. He wastes no time collecting his blood and putting everything in motion.

Years spent dying, reforming, searching. It’s nothing that strays too far from the past century’s routine, except for one thing: this time, Kravitz is alone. 

* * *

 

This does not change: four adventurers accompany Gundren Rockseeker on a quest. Three make up a trio of hardly more than strangers, seemingly roped together by coincidence and sticking with each other for the payment promised at the end. The fourth is hired as a guard and happens to be a lich, but nobody knows that second part now. The trio finds a gauntlet and someone else finds the trio, words turning to static in the air between them. The town of Phandalin is swallowed by a furious, relentless fire, and in very little time reduced to nothing more than a circle of black glass at the feet of the few survivors.

This, however, does: Horrified at the destruction of Phandalin, the trio of strangers falls into silence. Out of a sense of respect, perhaps the last thing she can give them, Lup removes her newly acquired hat and tucks it under her arm, trying to mimic the impassive expression worn by Hecuba in some attempt to save face, both trying to look less affected than they are. Julia doesn’t bother, eyes wide and hands pressed hard over her mouth. But soon enough they move on, even if they remain somewhat shaken. Maybe there was something they could have done, but who’s to say? It’s not like this was their fault, really. They just happened to show up and survive it.

(In a little over a year Lup will remember the feeling of the still-warm gauntlet in her hands and how quickly it did so much damage and feel sick to her fucking stomach, but not today. Today she will drop the gauntlet unceremoniously into her bag, swing her umbra staff over her shoulder, and follow her acquaintances on a trip to the moon.)

The fire sweeps Kravitz away with it, not another, and it is Kravitz who rises from the newly darkened ground with a stream of curses at the ready and, if it were possible, a chill down his back, because it’s  _ them _ \- three of them, at least, three that he’s certainly happy to see safe but not the happiest he could be because why is it _ just  _ them? Especially picking Lup out of the trio, not quite recognizing her on sight and his figurative heart skipping a figurative beat because _ is that - ? _

(It’s not.)

His figurative heart aches on sight of them and he realizes with a shock just how  _ much _ he misses his friends. Now he’s found them, at least some of them, but - the moon, frustratingly enough, is the one place he cannot follow them. Still, somehow, he makes do. He makes plans, because that’s what he does, and he waits because that’s what he’s done for years already and he’s prepared to do for years again if it means he can be reunited not just with Taako but with  _ everyone _ , with his  _ family _ . 

That’s the only thing keeping him going anymore.

* * *

 

The next time Kravitz sees the girls it’s in Goldcliff. 

They’re  _ different _ , he realizes, the past decade has changed them. And that’s to be expected, of course, but still it shocks him to see. They’re the same in so,  _ so _ many ways, Hecuba’s dry wit and Julia’s warmth and Lup’s daring, but after spending a century getting to know people it’s hard  _ not _ to notice the differences that stand out so starkly against the images of them that he’s kept in his mind for all this time. There’s something colder about Hecuba now, something sadder about Julia, something more guarded about Lup.

The situation in Goldcliff is messy, but that’s just to be expected when it comes to the relics. Lieutenant Hurley of the Goldcliff Militia is overtaken by the thrall of the Gaia Sash and Captain Bane tells the girls that she’s a damn fine lieutenant when she’s not being possessed by a dark magical object and it’d would be a damn shame to lose her, if they could  _ please _ try and save her. But in the end all four of them know that they’ll do whatever they have to do because they remember Phandalin.

There’s someone in Goldcliff, however, who is not so willing to allow that. The Raven comes to their rescue at the very last minute, panicked, admitting that she would never ask for anyone’s help if she didn’t think she absolutely  _ needed _ it, but for Hurley she’s willing to put her pride aside. She refuses to give them her name but she does give them information, information about Hurley, information about how to get her to listen to reason. She’s a criminal, Bane warns, a petty thief but a criminal all the same. He doesn’t want them working with her. 

“We need her,” Julia insists in a hushed whisper to the other two as they stand outside the Hammerhead’s garage. “There’s no way we’re going to get the lieutenant to listen to us. If we’re going to save her, we need the Raven’s help.”

Hecuba grunts noncommittally, arms crossed. “‘S not gonna work,” she says, staring defiantly up at Julia’s form towering over her. “Maybe it’d be easier to just kill her.”

(Kravitz doesn’t remember this Hecuba at all.)

“What - no!” Julia says at the very same time that Lup whips her head around to face her with an “ _ Absolutely _ not.”

(At least some things never change.)

“We’re _ not _ going to just kill her,” Lup says, a harshness to her voice, an edge that doesn’t fit her. “We’re going to get her and this whole city out of this alive, and we’re going to need the Raven’s help to do it.”

In the end, they do need the Raven’s help, and in the end it doesn’t matter. They cross the finish line and keep going, going, going, until they careen off the edge of the story to find Hurley crying, panicking, tripping over apologies to the love of her life dying in her arms. Not unlike the boys will do in another world, the girls stand silent once more, this time under the shadow of a cherry blossom tree, pink petals dancing serenely in the air and fluttering down to encircle the sash on the ground. Such is the nature of the relics - nothing could really change that.

Kravitz really does have all intentions of keeping his distance, for now at least. If Davenport knows that he’s been following them, keeping tabs - it’s all over. All the work he’s done, all these years worth, it’s all for nothing and he never finds Taako and he never  _ fixes _ anything. Still, with all intentions of staying in the shadows, his hand is forced. Captain Bane drinks poison under Kravitz’s command and he’s gone, and maybe Kravitz would feel a little worse about the whole thing if not for the fact that it was  _ Julia _ this man tried to kill, it was  _ Hecuba _ , it was  _ Lup _ .

“Are you afraid?” He asks his friends, and when they laugh at the idea of it and do nothing but play, when  _ Julia _ , bless her, tries to punch his incorporeal form again and again, he can’t help but feel fond. 

* * *

 

The lab introduces a new threat.

Again, Kravitz is forced to keep his distance, this time not from Davenport from someone who makes things far less personal and much more difficult. This time, though, he feels that he really should have anticipated something like this. After a century spent evading death by an inch, it was only a matter of time before  _ something _ caught up to them, and a bounty on their heads by the Raven Queen only seemed fair. Enter Barry, stage right, pink tourmaline from head to toe and taunting the girls from behind every chance that he gets. Hecuba loses her arm to his tricks and Julia and Lup are left to handle the subsequent emergency amputation.

As much as he wants to interfere, this time he knows he must wait until the time is right, and with Barry so close behind them it’s just not. He waits, waits until they’re on the other side of the door, until Lucas gives him the starting point he needs to make his appearance and try to explain to them what little he can.

He soon finds himself distracted from all of that.

He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before. Because Lup has been on the moon more often than not, he reasons, and did he ever see her wearing it before then? He thinks back to Phandalin; it was under her arm while she mourned the loss of the town. He thinks back to Goldcliff, to after the race, and remembers seeing only her hair windswept and unruly, the hat removed because of course it would be stupid to wear it during the race, it would fly right off. But here in the lab he sees it clearly and he  _ recognizes _ it, he knows exactly what he’s seeing, and it stops him dead in the middle of his sentence.

“Lup,” he says very suddenly, and stares him down, unafraid. There’s something wrong seeing the hat on her head, thinking back to all the times she had scoffed at it and tugged teasingly at the tip, laughing at Taako’s indignation and insistence that  _ “Well, it’s not stupid when  _ I’m _ the one wearing it.” _

“Lup,” he repeats, and she still doesn’t waver. “Where...where did you get that hat?”

She looks up to stare at the brim of the hat, shrugging. “Took it off some dead dude in a cave.”

_ She doesn’t know. _

“A dead dude in a red robe,” Julia adds, eyeing Kravitz’s own. 

_ None of them do. _

Lup looks back at him, a familiar smirk tugging at her lips. “You two know each other?”

_ They really don’t remember. _

“You…”

Kravitz’s voice falters, losing the power behind it, slipping into something far more vulnerable than he would have liked but he doesn’t  _ care _ . They keep talking right over him, Julia and Hecuba and  _ Lup _ , of all people, laughing and bickering and detailing so casually the discovery in the cave, the confirmation of Kravitz’s worst fear. The grief passes quickly and replaces itself with rage, rage at the whole damn situation, at Davenport for causing this shitshow and himself for not being able to do more to stop, at Julia and Hecuba and Lup for not taking a second to stop and think and remember, for treating this so lightly, for not _ knowing _ -

_ “You found him?” _

All he catches is a split second of confusion on their faces before he’s gone, vanishing behind a shower of red electricity and a pillar of flames, leaving the girls in the center of the cold pink tourmaline and trying not to let his mind wander to what must have been on Taako’s while he was dying _ alone _ .

* * *

 

Refuge is a bit of a game changer. He can’t get through the bubble to follow them in, but he knows enough without needing to. Refuge - it definitely rings a bell, and from what he manages to glean of the mission they’re on, he puts two and two together.

This one is Julia’s.

Kravitz waits for them on the other side of the bubble and when they come out they’ve changed again. They look like they just went through a lot longer than forty minutes worth of a mission, covered in sweat and clay and dirt, donned in torn, muddy clothing. The hat, somehow, comes out unscathed. Kravitz can only imagine that’s Taako’s doing, even after all this time.

But there’s more than just the physical aspect of it, there’s something different in the way that they’re carrying themselves. Lup looks like she’s buzzing with more than just adrenaline, something furious simmering just beneath the surface of her expression. Julia has a far-off look in her eyes, her eyes vaguely red-rimmed. 

Kravitz doesn’t try to take any particular approach when he appears to them this time, doesn’t try to make himself appear mystical or omnipotent. He doesn’t have much more of that left in him. When he appears and they hardly react, rather than jumping into some cryptic spiel, he just sighs.

“You three really aren’t intimidated by me at all, are you?”

The three of them shake their heads, laughing. 

(If he weren’t so tired, his figurative heart would be swelling with pride.)

“Did you retrieve the cup?” He asks, eyeing their disheveled forms uncertainly.

It’s Julia ( _ of course Julia _ ) who answers him, gesturing to her bag with a grin that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Yep.”

A follow-up question waits on the tip of his tongue but pauses there, catches itself.  _ What did you change?  _ He nearly asks them, but he stops, he really thinks. He sees Hecuba’s interest fall more on her soulwood arm than on him, traveling slowly down the length of it and admiring the little flower buds along the side and he thinks -  _ would they really change anything at all?  _ Especially with whatever conditions he knows the chalice must have presented, the choice it must have asked them to make. What would it expect them to give up in order for a chance to turn back the clock like that?

(He can almost hear Taako tutting his tongue in the back of his mind, hear traces of amusement in his voice.  _ “You have too much faith in people, handsome.”  _ But even then, this isn’t just anyone, this is _ them _ \- surely he can trust them, it’s worth it to have faith here. Otherwise, he doesn’t know what he’s doing here.)

So instead, he poses a different question.

“Do you trust me?”

They laugh in his face.

Just as he feared, Davenport has made him out to be the villain in the story. Too dense to see through his own mistakes, or perhaps just too stubborn to admit them to himself, or perhaps even more than that, too ashamed at what he’s already done to admit that  _ maybe _ he can’t do this on his own. That sounds more like it. Stubbornly independent and desperate enough to make sure his mistakes go unnoticed by the rest of the world that he’ll turn things around so that  _ Kravitz _ is the one in the wrong. He hopes that whatever the old fool is doing up there,  _ something _ is going right. He hopes that Lucretia is safe, that she’s working just as he is to figure things out to the best of her abilities, that maybe he’ll be able to find some help in her if no one else. He hopes -

He’s very quickly losing his ability to run on hope alone.

He looks at the hat on Lup’s head and he whispers an apology to it, frantic and cutting it pretty damn close to falling apart completely. “They don’t trust me, Taako,” he says. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

In the end he leaves the girls with nothing more than they had when he arrived except maybe a few more questions, practically begging for their trust, as little as they’re willing to give as long as it’s  _ something _ , before he vanishes behind the flames again, kicking up dust in their faces as he goes.

* * *

 

Wonderland takes and takes and takes.

Wonderland takes half Hecuba’s sight and the remainder of Julia’s youth and part of Lup’s resemblance to Taako, even if the last part won’t mean as much to her just yet. It takes their health and their skills and their memories, a currency already running low. It takes a lifelong promise of revenge from Julia and places it on Lup and Hecuba instead, weighing their minds with the name that had branded itself across Julia’s and was now gone, lost to the flashing lights and thick black smog that fed this sick horror show.

Kravitz follows them through Wonderland with guilt tugging endlessly at him the whole way, because this one - this one is his.

_ (If only he’d hidden the bell better to begin with, if only he’d found it before now, if only there was something he could do to show them the truth - ) _

Now, though, is not the time for  _ if only _ .

This does not change: A trio of adventurers have by now long become fire-forged friends in the way that only a _ real _ fire can make them - a fire, a murder investigation, a deadly battlewagon race, a lab coated wall to ceiling in pink tourmaline, a town trapped in time. They enter Wonderland wondering what could possibly go more wrong than things tend to do for them, and they get their answer the hard way, but they aren’t alone. Someone is looking out for them. An elf, a dwarf, and a human get on the catwalk, and an elf, a dwarf, and a mannequin leave it with a bell clutched victoriously in hand. 

This, however, does: It’s Kravitz who takes three Stones of Farspeech and turns them to dust, Lup who is caught off guard and laughs very suddenly with delight, Julia who waits for an explanation with a mannequin’s blank slate for a face. Kravitz leads the girls through the Felicity Wilds and all the way to a cavern carved into a familiar stretch of foothills, to the base where he’s been planning this all. A new body waits for him in a tank and he hesitates just slightly before stepping inside, because this is  _ it _ . This is his last chance. He casts one last glance at the girls behind him, Hecuba fixing him with a wary look through her one good eye and watching him expectantly, Lup grinning tiredly and wearing yesterday’s catwalk clothes and somehow managing to make the look work, Julia...well, Julia is a mannequin, but the spirit is there all the same. And now he tries to stretch his imagination, wonder what the scene would look like if things hadn’t broken quite as bad as they did, picture that Lucretia is there with a pen and an open journal at the ready, Davenport waiting in anticipation to see if this plan pays off. Taako, matching Lup’s grin, giving Kravitz an affectionate peck on the cheek and speaking confidently to contrast the uncertain atmosphere of the cave.  _ “See you on the other side,” _ he would say, and that’s exactly what would happen.

Kravitz lowers himself into the tank and takes one last shot at this thing.

**Author's Note:**

> god i want 2 write more for this au FUCK


End file.
